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I know, scary words to hear. A phrase usually followed up with some sort of ultimatum or possible parting of the ways, but that’s not what this is, well, this time at least.

Something has happened to me and I want to share it with you. Unfortunately, maybe this time around, I’m not sharing great news. For instance, last week I got my YouTube certified status, that was great news I wanted to share, and I did, on twitter. (Shameless plug here, follow me on Twitter @shellysavesthe).

This time is different though, this isn’t really something that I wanted to share, I’m still debating on sharing, even as I type this. The coward in me wants to save it to drafts, or the trash. The brave part of me will hit publish, at 1:30 in the morning so that it has the least amount of chance to be seen by others.

The first time it happened to me, I was 25 and on a business trip to California. I was having trouble eating my soup, it kept missing my mouth and I was literally thinking to myself “stop being so weird!” Then I looked in the mirror and saw it. Half of my face was drooping lower than the other. I couldn’t seem to move my entire left side of my face. I was having issues speaking, something was just off.

I had Bell’s Palsy and I seemed to have it pretty severely. I went to the hospital convinced I did. They confirmed it within seconds of looking at me. They sent me home without much of anything, because there didn’t seem to be that much research on how to fix it.

We were taking a group picture the next day. I really did try to smile, I promise. Not only did I hate the way I looked, it was the first time I’ve ever wished that I could just have taken the picture with my standard resting b*tch face, that I usually despise.

Back in the day, oh to be 25 again, I decided that auditioning for a professional sports teams dance team was a good idea. I decided to be honest and try to tell them why my face was having issues not putting on the perfect cheerleader face they wanted. This was only a few days after going to the hospital.

I didn’t make the team, big surprise. They were sympathetic sure, but I doubt they were thinking I could be a calendar girl with my face the way it was in its current state. I remember feeling ashamed, my body was failing me, I couldn’t control it, and if you know me at all, I really hate not being in control of anything.

It went away on its own in a few weeks. No rhyme, no reason, no explanation, and no sadness to see it gone on my part. I’ve always thought I had a crooked smile, but during that time, through today, I’ve always felt it was accentuated more. It’s something I’ve been ashamed of, tried to work around, tried to make jokes about, but it can be soul crushing.

Here I am now, years later and as it turns out, fate is not done with me yet. It started 24 hours ago. I tried putting on chapstick, I couldn’t seem to get my lips to smack together as usual. I didn’t think much of it until later on in the day when I went to have lunch. Food was getting into my mouth but I was having problems chewing consistently on both sides of my mouth. I took another bite, food fell out of my mouth and I literally had one thought flash into my brain. “It’s happening again”.

I went to the bathroom and I tried to smile at myself in the mirror. Only half of me was able to smile back. The other side, the droopy side, gave me a sad half hearted attempt and I instantly knew. It had happened again. One eyebrow lower than the other, the inability to smile fully, and difficulty closing my eye, and all again on the left side of my face.

I don’t know what this means for me, why it’s back, but I decided to go back to the hospital fully prepared to hear there was nothing they can recommend for me. This time was different, they said instantly, yes it’s Bell’s palsy again, but this time they offered hope, in the form of a couple of prescriptions that hopefully reduce the swelling around the nerve to get my muscle control back.

Bells Palsy is a kind of partial facial paralysis often caused by nerve damage and affecting the facial muscles ability to smile or really even, hold themselves taught. I’m not fully sure why I’m sharing all this with you. I guess I want to show you that all that glitters online isn’t always gold, people go through real things every day and being online doesn’t exempt you from it.

Things can literally change in the blink of an eye. Here are 2 pictures of me, less than 72 hours apart. The world moves fast people.

I guess I’m just saying, life is really short and you never know what hand you’re going to be dealt. Things that you thought were long gone can come back with a vengeance. Dealing with things the same way as you did in your past may not work for you, or you may not get the same result.

I’m not going to be all sunshine and roses here. This sucks, totally sucks, but I’m dealing with it. I’ll keep pushing forward but I guess I need to say that if you see me soon, and you don’t get a full smile out of me, this might be the reason why.

I wanted to start off the year with a message of positivity and support. For starters, I’m going to share my 2018 goals with you. I know that many of us make resolutions, I usually don’t however because I one, tend to forget to think about it in time and two, usually never make it 24 hours in my resolve to actually commit to a half baked plan.

This year, is different in the fact that I am committed to achieving numbers of things I can control vs. things I have no control over. What does this mean? It means, I realize that I can’t control how many people choose to hit the red subscribe button, but I can control how many videos I put out this year. I’m going to share my list with you, it may continue to grow and evolve and change, I am giving myself permission to be okay with that. Here we go.

YouTube
70 videos this year

Podcast
Do 50 podcast episodes this year

Instagram
Post 300 times on Instagram

Website
25 blog posts

Product Creation
Create an e-book about YouTube
Create a product such as animated subscribe button or intros or endslates for sale.
Offer consultative services for social media help.

Business
Get YouTube certified﻿

I know that the spotlight on YouTube people has been a bit tarnished and diminished to start off the New Year, but I want to spend some time creating content that sends out a positive message rather than record myself going off on a rant about someone who has made me angry. I know that I could garner attention and views, because I have so much to say on this topic, but I think that right now what the world needs is some joy and positivity. To this end, I have decided that the first video of the year is going to be my most supportive youtube friends.

Let this video serve as a reminder that there are a lot of good people on this platform, people who deserve your attention and who put out good content that genuinely helps other people. I hope you enjoy it! 💕

Do you ever have those moments in life where you sit back and wonder “Where did the time go?! I had so much planned to do!” I am having one of those moments, weeks, heck, months. I feel as if there are a million things to do, things to write, things to capture on video, blog about, podcast about, pinterest about, and I have no idea how to actually accomplish any of them!

I know there is a saying that when you focus on everything, you focus on nothing. I feel as if this is true. Sometimes, you have to focus on something small…you have to start somewhere, anywhere, and then move forward from there. There is so much that falls by the wayside. So many emails I wanted to respond to, so many comments that have been unanswered for far longer than I would like, puppies to pet, pictures to take, holiday crafting never started and hopes not yet realized.

I’m not even sure yet what I’m trying to say in this very post. So many months have passed since my last post, here is one more thing that I have not done a good job at keeping up with. One more area of my life and online social presence where I feel I have let you down. Whomever out there in the world who would dare to say that this is “Easy”, I would say… try it.

Yes, I hope that one day I can spend my days and nights as I desire to, creating and producing content for every platform and helping others to go after what it is that they want in their lives too, but for now, I might need a hot bubble bath and night of puppy snuggles.

I am so humbled that people out there in the world care at all about what I have to say and share with the world sometimes. I promise that I will continue to try my best to be here for you more consistently. Happy December peeps! 💕

It’s been an unbelievable last few days! Last Saturday my subscriber count was at 992. I was pushing so hard to try and break into 4 digit numbers. I wanted to hit 1000 so badly. Something about that, meant that I had made it, at least in my own mind. If you want to hear the story of how everything changed in such a short time, I outline it in some detail on my YouTube channel video which I will post here:

In a split decision, I decided to start a giveaway just to say thank you to all my subscribers old and new to celebrate. Fast forward 2 days later and my numbers grew even more so I decided to update my contest. See here:

I am so humbled and grateful that this experience has happened. I’m just a normal girl, making videos for the internet. It’s quite crazy that all of this has happened to me.

I absolutely cannot thank my friend Kimbyrleigha enough for the love that she has shown me and the influx of new subscribers that came to support her and myself! Thank you so much 💕

Originally, I had considered naming this series Fifty Shades of Foundation First Impressions, or something to that effect. However I decided to ditch that because I felt that even if I find foundations that I truly love: which would be amazing, I’m willing to continue the series on for as long as I can. I didn’t want to limit myself to basically what was going to be a designated 1 year period. (taking off 2 weeks for christmas or whatnot in a year with 52 weeks)

Usually, I can tell within 1 or 2 wears if I will love a foundation. If I still like a foundation on the second day, it’s a rare thing. My skin can sometimes be fickle and change day over day for me. Hence, the series being based on my initial impressions of a product.

I know that I certainly can’t be the only person who has struggles with finding their perfect match. I have tried going into stores and having countless people attempt to match me. I purchase recommendations and usually almost always end up returning them because I don’t like them for one reason or another. My first real dive into makeup was when I was in 8th grade. Correction, when I graduated from 8th grade. My mother took me to the Clinique counter at our local department store to get my makeup done and buy a couple of products. I remember thinking that I was so grown up at this point. I kept thinking that I was going to be completely transformed and almost unrecognizable at graduation and people wouldn’t be able to put their finger on exactly what it was that made me “look” so grown up.

In high school, I was more of a late bloomer than most. I was a tomboy, an athlete that hadn’t learned much about makeup during the time others did, as I was always running off to my next gymnastics event. I had never heard of eyeshadow, didn’t really know it was a thing. I had no brushes, maybe a few of those triangle makeup sponges but definitely nothing specific for eyes or the rest of my face. I had 1 brush, a blush one, which came inside the blush I purchased if this gives you an idea. I put on foundation with my fingers.

I knew about eyeliner, and my fight with the inevitable raccoon eyes, aka transfer, started from that first moment on. I didn’t know any better at this point, I just figured this was how it was for everyone. I did dark black eyeliner all around the eye, literal circles, because I didn’t have eyeshadow and this is how one achieved the “smokey eye” right? Just kidding, I didn’t even know what a smokey eye was at this point in my life.

I thought my makeup game was pretty serious because I could fill a small gift with purchase makeup bag with my products. And then, the caboodle came out. I threw in my face care at this point and man, I thought I was set! Mind you, we’re also talking about the very small caboodle. Anyways, I digress, the whole point of the flashback glimpse was just to say in way too many words, I was a late bloomer with makeup.

Fast forward a few years and I tried out for an NFL cheerleading team. I thought I had done super heavy makeup. I was at a preaudition workshop and asked the coach, what she thought of my “look”. She took one look at me in a cursory up and down glance and said “Go to the MAC counter and tell them you need lessons”. I didn’t make the team but I did learn a thing or two at the makeup counter. This was my first foray into eyeshadow looks.

Fast forward a few more years, I discovered makeup gurus on YouTube. I realized that they were doing things that I had never heard of. Contouring, highlighting, bronzing, blending, cut creasing, all of these words were completely new to me and I was mesmerized. I was completely hooked, even if I had no idea what they were talking about. I wanted so badly to emulate these women I was seeing on screen.

One thing that I really didn’t realize until much later was that I kept on lamenting on how I thought that I couldn’t achieve the looks they were doing because of my lack of eyelid. Having a monolid really started to affect me in a way that I wasn’t expecting. I kept wishing and hoping that I could see someone more like myself so that I could achieve the eye looks that they would come up with. I remember being frustrated that I didn’t have a crease and everyone kept talking about having one and blending it and so on and so forth. But again, I digress, this isn’t a story about my eyelids, we’re still on the path to perfect foundations.

I remember many years later still, now in my 20’s, I was feeling even more like a grown up, I had a job that in my opinion paid pretty well, I was buying my first condo on my own and felt like I had really got most of the pieces of my life together. I was being sent on a trip from work that was celebrating women in leadership with the company. I remember picking out my dinner outfit, and finishing my makeup, and feeling pretty good about how I looked.

I ran into one of the organizers of the event, a pretty high up executive, and we were talking. She knew my name! She talked to me for a few minutes and I was feeling so good. I was with a few other women from my state and we decided to take a picture together. I remember thinking when I was taking the photo and smiling for the camera that life was pretty cool at that moment and how I would remember that photo and be so proud of it. It may have been during the myspace days but I was prepared to put that picture up lol.

Looking at the photo, I remember thinking, “holy crap! Why does my face look like this?!” This was my first experience with flashback and it was awful. I had no idea that face makeup could even do something like this. I looked like a ghost and I couldn’t understand where I had gone wrong. Not only did I think, my foundation looks white, but it doesn’t looks like I match at all. Two different issues but I had no idea at the time. I was traumatized and I did not end up ever publishing that photo online.

From then on, I was even more obsessed with finding my right “tone” of foundation. I was convinced that I had done it incorrectly and I became super self conscious and hyper aware of color matching efforts from that moment on. Over the years I’ve tried so many foundations and occasionally I would find one that I would say, hey this isn’t so bad. (Thank you Neutragena healthy skin?) Many of the foundations I wore over the years were always alright. There had never been one that I had just fallen in love with head over heals. My true ride or die, with me til the end true love. The one I brag about to all my friends to the point where they might think I’m getting paid to talk about it.

I am determined that I will find my favorite foundations. I’m looking for an everyday foundation and one for more serious or fancy occasions, for when I’m ready for serious glam. I’m okay with searching the world high and low for my new favorite products.

The criteria I’m using for finding my Holy Grail Foundation will include:

Longevity

Coverage

Undertone

Does not cling to dry patches on nose

Color match without oxidation

Natural-Matte Finish

Things that don’t matter as much, but can factor in final thoughts:

Affordability

Application demands (Brush vs Blender)

Amount of product in container vs how much is needed for application

This series may not be of interest to you, and that’s ok. It’s more of a personal journaling for me of all the attempts and thoughts I have around certain foundations. It may resonate with some people and it may not. I completely understand and accept that.

I think you will see, I’m not a brand snob. I’ll try foundations from the drug store as well as the department store and throughout it all, I will provide my own honest opinions. You can disagree with any and all of my opinions and that’s totally acceptable. Every person’s skin is different and reactions to certain makeup can vary as wildly as colors in the world. I’m certainly not trying to anger anyone with any of my opinions, as they are my own, speaking on my own experiences.

You may love certain products I dislike, or dislike products that I love, it’s all good and it’s all correct. If you’re up for following along my journey, I would love to have you with me. If you want to tune out for this series, I hope that there is something else on my channel that you might enjoy, as I would certainly love to have you along for the ride.

Even when I went to the Lancôme counter to have my skin matched, which side note (was one of the best color matches I’ve ever had), they were surprised by the complexity of my skin color. A little yellow, a little olive, paler than you might think and yet no perfect match. If it hadn’t been for the finish and coverage of the foundation by Lancôme I would have been in love, but alas, those things are quite important to me. I want the whole package!

I’m a girl who wants it all. I want my face to look flawless and beautiful. I won’t stop until when I look in the mirror, I think that I’ve finally nailed it. I think I owe it to the girls of my past who thought I had stuff figured out to finally actually figure it out!

Periodically, if I continue to use a foundation I will update my description boxes to provide updates on my opinions on things from longevity to final thoughts. I will post the weekly video here on my blog as well as on YouTube. I will put more details in my posts here though. I hope you come along for the ride and will help cheer me on as a I go on the hunt for my favorite foundations.

I believe that a woman in the right makeup, can rule the world lol. There’s something about knowing that you like what you see when you look in the mirror that makes you present yourself to the world in a more confident way. I am all for women being confident these days, we could certainly use more of that in the world.

If you’re a brand and would like for me to include your foundation for review, please contact me to make arrangements. Please note that products given for review will not receive guaranteed positive reviews, but they will receive an honest one.

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